The Shifting Sands

A short time afterwards, astounded by their unexpected release, the three companions sat back on their heels in the shelter of a cave and stared in amazement at their rescuer: Doom.

Impatiently, he waved away their thanks.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “We have little time. I am the leader of a group sworn to resist the Shadow Lord. We have been suspicious of the Games for some time — certain that they were not all they seemed. My purpose there was to see what was happening, from the inside. Your presence upset my plans. I tried to scare you off —”

“It was you who locked us in our room!” Lief broke in. “You who attacked us.”

“Yes — and got cut for my pains.” Doom grimaced, touching the cloth at his neck. “I was trying to stop you from competing — to protect you.”

“Why?” Barda asked bluntly.

“When first I saw you in Tom’s shop something about you interested me. I was hurrying on business of my own and could not stay. But ever since, wherever I have been, I have heard whispers about three travellers — a man, a boy, and a wild girl, accompanied by a black bird. Wherever these travellers go, it is said, part of the Shadow Lord’s evil is undone.”

Lief gripped Barda’s arm. If word about them was spreading, how long would it be before the Shadow Lord became aware of them?

But Jasmine, who still could not make up her mind to trust Doom, had something else on her mind. “You allowed us to be captured,” she accused. “You crept away after the finals, but you did not leave. You hid in the inn, watched, and did not lift a hand to help us.”

Doom shrugged. “I had no choice. I had to find out how the trick was worked. I had intended that animal Glock to be proclaimed Champion, and suffer whatever fate was in store for him. But he took the drugged drink intended for you, girl, and instead of losing to him, as I had planned, I had to find a way of pretending to lose to you.”

Jasmine drew herself up. “You played your part well,” she said coldly. “In fact, I would have sworn that you did lose. Or am I mistaken in thinking you hit your head on the wall, and slid down it almost unconscious?”

Doom’s grim face relaxed into a half smile. “You will never know, will you?” he said dryly.

“If it had been Glock who had been captured, would you have rescued him?” asked Lief curiously.

The smile disappeared. “You ask too many questions,” growled Doom. “What is certain is that I must save him now, for he and the woman Neridah will be following in your footsteps tomorrow, and I cannot release one without the other. It is unfortunate.”

He stared broodingly out into the rain for a moment, then turned to them again. “A group is waiting not far away. Among them is Dain, the boy who helped me at the Games. He will lead you into the mountains where we have a stronghold. You will be safe there.”

Barda, Lief, and Jasmine glanced at one another.

“We are grateful to you,” said Barda at last. “And I hope you will not take this amiss. But I fear we cannot accept your offer. We must continue our travels. There is — something of importance we must do.”

Doom frowned. “Whatever it is, you must abandon it for now,” he said. “I could not risk trying to kill the Guards. It was dangerous enough stealing your weapons and supplies from the cart while they slept below.”

“They have our gold, I think,” sighed Lief.

“Yes, I saw them take it,” Doom said. “But their master will care nothing for that. It is you he wants. When they wake and find you gone they will track you wherever you go. They will not rest until you are found.”

“All the better, then, that we do not lead them to your stronghold,” said Barda calmly. He put on his sword and pack and began crawling from the cave. Doom put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“We are many, and at our base we have ways of dealing with Guards,” he said. “You had better join us. What could be more important than our cause? What is this mysterious mission that cannot wait?”

Barda, unsmiling, pulled the restraining hand from his shoulder and continued crawling from the cave. Jasmine and Lief followed. Outside, the rain still fell and the sky was black and starless.

Doom appeared beside them, silent as a shadow. “Go your way, then,” he said, his voice very cold. “But say nothing to anyone of what I have told you this night, or you will wish you had gone to the Shadowlands.”

Without another word, he disappeared into the dripping bushes, and was gone.

“How dare he threaten us!” hissed Jasmine.

“He is angry.” Lief felt very low-spirited. His head ached, he was cold, and he was sorry to have parted with Doom on bad terms. “I think he is a man who rarely trusts. Yet he trusted us. Now he fears that he was foolish to do so, for we would not trust him in return.”

Barda nodded slowly. “I wish it could have been otherwise,” he said. “He would have been a valuable ally. But we could not risk it. Doom would not be content to let us keep our secret. And there are spies everywhere — even his band may not be safe. Later, if we succeed in our quest —”

Kree squawked impatiently.

“We will not live to succeed in anything if we do not move on,” Jasmine said. “It is nearly dawn.”

“But which way do we go?” Lief looked around him in frustration. “We have no idea where we are, and we do not even have the stars to guide us.”

“You are forgetting Kree,” Jasmine smiled. “He followed us. He knows exactly where we are.”

They began to walk, Kree fluttering ahead of them. Soon they found a tiny stream which had been swelled by the rain. They plunged into it and splashed along its bed for as long as they could, hoping that the water would disguise their scent.

All of them felt bruised and ill and longed to rest. But the thought of the Grey Guards following them like evil tracking dogs drove them on.

Dawn came, and with it the sun, struggling feebly through the clouds. Soon afterwards they reached a narrow road heavily marked by puddled cart tracks. On the other side of the road was a wooden fence and beyond that a stretch of stony land ending at a row of low grey hills. Kree flew to a fence post and flapped his wings impatiently, hopping to the left.

“If we walk along the fence, we will at least leave no tracks,” murmured Jasmine. “Hurry!”

Gathering themselves for the effort, they leaped across the road, climbed the fence, and began moving along it, Jasmine balancing on the top, and Barda and Lief edging uncomfortably along with their feet on the middle rail.

After a short time they reached a crossroads. The fence continued around the corner and on into the distance where it was lost in the grey hills. And right beside the corner post stood a huge, weathered stone. It was as tall as Lief. Words had been carved on it, but so long ago that many of the letters had disappeared.

“The Shifting Sands. Danger!” Barda squinted at the stone. “That much I can make out, but what the smaller writing says I cannot say. Too many of the letters have been worn away by wind and weather.”

“I think the first word is ‘Death,’” said Lief in a low voice. He leaned out from the fence and touched the stone, tracing the letters with the tips of his fingers. Hesitantly, using touch as well as sight, he began to read.

“Death swarms within its rocky wall,

Where all are one, one will rules all …”

“Go on, Lief!” Jasmine urged, as he paused.

Lief shook his head, frowning. “The next two lines are more worn than the others. They seem to say something like: ‘Be now the dead, the living strive … With mindless will to survive.’ But that does not really make sense.”

“It makes enough sense to tell us that the Sands are not going to be pleasant,” said Barda dryly. “But we knew that, I think.”

Jasmine’s mind was busy with practical matters. “Since the verse talks of a ‘rocky wall’ I would guess that the Sands are just beyond the hills. But we will have to cross the plain to reach them. The stones may hide our tracks, but there will be no way to disguise our scent.”

“It cannot be helped,” said Lief. He climbed over the fence and jumped gratefully to the ground on the other side, flexing his cramped fingers. “Besides, we have been very careful. The Guards have surely lost our trail by now.”

“I would not count on that,” muttered Barda. But he also climbed to the ground and after a moment Jasmine jumped down to join them. They set off, almost running over the bare ground, glancing often behind them. Despite his hopeful words, Lief looked back as often as his companions did. The idea of Grey Guards silently following, the idea of a deadly blister flying unseen towards him to explode on his back, made his skin crawl.

It became warmer as the sun climbed steadily behind its veil of cloud, and steam began to rise from the wet ground. The grey hills ahead were also quickly shrouded in mist. So it was only when the companions actually reached them that they realized that these were not ordinary hills at all, but thousands of huge boulders heaped together to make a high, natural wall — the “rocky wall” of the verse.

They began to climb and soon lost all sight of the ground below. Everything around them was white. The air grew thick and all sound was dulled. Cautiously, one step at a time, they clambered to the top of the rock pile, then, even more cautiously, began to edge down the other side.

As they neared the ground, a sound met their ears — a low droning, so faint that at first Lief thought he was imagining it. And the next moment, without warning, he was below the cloud.

Slowly he turned away from the rocks to look at what was beyond. The breath caught in his throat. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

They had arrived at the Shifting Sands.